As of January 1, 2025, tech giants Nvidia, Apple, Microsoft , Amazon, and Alphabet (Google) dominated the S&P 500 index and were the among only nine companies with a market capitalization exceeding one trillion U.S. dollars in the U.S.

View data of the S&P 500, an index of the stocks of 500 leading companies in the US economy, which provides a gauge of the U.S. equity market.

The Standard & Poor’s (S&P) 500 Index is an index of 500 leading publicly traded companies in the United States. In 2021, the index value closed at 4,766.18 points, which was the second highest value on record despite the economic effects of the global coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. In 2023, the index values closed at 4,769.83, the highest value ever recorded. What is the S&P 500? The S&P 500 was established in 1860 and expanded to its present form of 500 stocks in 1957. It tracks the price of stocks on the major stock exchanges in the United States, distilling their performance down to a single number that investors can use as a snapshot of the economy’s performance at a given moment. This snapshot can be explored further. For example, the index can be examined by industry sector, which gives a more detailed illustration of the economy. Other measures Being a stock market index, the S&P 500 only measures equities performance. In addition to other stock market indices, analysts will look to other indicators such as GDP growth, unemployment rates, and projected inflation. Similarly, since these indicators say something about the economic future, stock market investors will use these indicators to speculate on the stocks in the S&P 500.

Enterprise value to earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EV/EBITDA) is a key measurement ratio used as a metric of valuing whether a company is under or overvalued as compared to a historical industry average. The S&P 500 (Standard & Poor’s) is an index of the 500 largest U.S. publicly traded companies by market capitalization. In 2023, the consumer staples sector displayed the highest EV/EBITDA multiple with 15.14.

Prices for United States Stock Market Index (US500) including live quotes, historical charts and news. United States Stock Market Index (US500) was last updated by Trading Economics this March 20 of 2025.

As of August 2020, the S&P 500 index had lost 34 percent of its value due to the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the Great Crash, which began with Black Tuesday, remains the most significant loss in value in its history. That market crash lasted for 300 months and wiped 86 percent off the index value.

As of December 2023, State Street’s SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust was the highest valued exchange-traded fund (ETF) globally, with a market capitalization of about 417.37 billion U.S. dollars. Market capitalization of an ETF is calculated by multiplying the number of shares issued in the fund by the share price. This ETF is also the largest ETF by assets under management - although, at over 1 trillion U.S. dollars, the Vanguard Total Stock Market Index Fund is overall the largest investment fund by AUM. However, the Vanguard fund is different because shares in the fund are sold as a variety of different products, some of which are structured as ETFs (like the third-largest fund listed in this statistic), while others are structured as traditional mutual funds.

What are ETFs?

ETFs are similar to mutual funds, in that they consist of a pool of investors’ funds which are managed by an independent third party for the purpose of a common financial investment. However, ETFs differ through how shares in the fund are bought and sold through a stock exchange, rather than directly from the fund manager. This provides the advantages of generally lower prices (as the transaction costs are paid by the exchange operator rather than the fund manager), and the possibility of intraday trading (as shares in a traditional mutual fund can only be bought and sold after the close of daily trading. The total assets managed by ETFs globally is almost six times lower than that of mutual funds, although the gap in AUM between ETFs and mutual funds in the United States is much lower, at just over three times less.

Who are the largest ETF providers?

The largest provider of ETFs globally is Blackrock, the world’s largest asset management company. As of 2023, the company had more than 2.3 trillion U.S. dollars of assets under management in exchange traded funds in the U.S. alone, while Blackrock’s total assets under management across all products reached almost ten trillion U.S. dollars. Rounding out the top three providers of ETFs are fellow U.S asset managers Vanguard and State Street.

Until the third quarter of 2021, the S&P 500 and the S&P 500 ESG index exhibited similar performance, both indexes were weighted to similar industries as the S&P 500 followed the leading 500 companies in the United States. By the fourth quarter of 2021, the S&P 500 ESG index began to steadily outperform the S&P 500 by four points on average. During the coronavirus pandemic, the technology sector was one of the best-performing sectors in the market. The major differences between the two indexes were the S&P 500 ESG index was skewed towards firms with higher environmental, social, and governance (ESG) scores and had a higher concentration of technology securities than the S&P 500 index. What is a market capitalization index? Both the S&P 500 and the S&P 500 ESG are market capitalization indexes, meaning the individual components (such as stocks and other securities) weighted to the indexes influence the overall value. Market trends such as inflation, interest rates, and international issues like the coronavirus pandemic and the popularity of ESG among professional investors affect the performance of stocks. When weighted components rise in value this causes an increase in the overall value of the index they are weighted too. What trends are driving index performance? Recent economic and social trends have led to higher levels of ESG integration and maintenance among firms worldwide and higher prioritization from investors to include ESG-focused firms in their investment choices. From a global survey group over one-third of the respondents were willing to prioritize ESG benefits over a higher return on their investment. These trends influenced the performance of securities on the market, leading to an increased value of individual weighted stocks, resulting in an overall increase in the index value.

In 2018, the intangible value of all companies on the S&P 500 Index was 21.03 trillion U.S. dollars. During the same year, the value of tangible assets of the same companies was only four trillion U.S. dollars.

Between March 4 and March 11, 2020, the S&P 500 index declined by twelve percent, descending into a bear market. On March 12, 2020, the S&P 500 plunged 9.5 percent, its steepest one-day fall since 1987. The index began to recover at the start of April and reached a peak in December 2021. As of December 29, 2024, the value of the S&P 500 stood at 5,942.47 points. Coronavirus sparks stock market chaos Stock markets plunged in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, with investors fearing its spread would destroy economic growth. Buoyed by figures that suggested cases were leveling off in China, investors were initially optimistic about the virus being contained. However, confidence in the market started to subside as the number of cases increased worldwide. Investors were deterred from buying stocks, and this was reflected in the markets – the values of the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the Nasdaq Composite also dived during the height of the crisis. What is a bear market? A bear market occurs when the value of a stock market suffers a prolonged decline of more than 20 percent over a period of at least two months. The COVID-19 pandemic caused severe concern and sent stock markets on a steep downward spiral. The S&P 500 achieved a record closing high of 3,386 on February 19, 2020. However, just over three weeks later, the market closed on 2,480, which represented a decline of around 26 percent in only 16 sessions.

As of November 14, 2021, all S&P 500 sector indices had recovered to levels above those of January 2020, prior to full economic effects of the global coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic taking hold. However, different sectors recovered at different rates to sit at widely different levels above their pre-pandemic levels. This suggests that the effect of the coronavirus on financial markets in the United States is directly affected by how the virus has impacted various parts of the underlying economy.

Which industry performed the best during the coronavirus pandemic?

Companies operating in the information technology (IT) sector have been the clear winners from the pandemic, with the IT S&P 500 sector index sitting at almost 65 percent above early 2020 levels as of November 2021. This is perhaps not surprising given this industry includes some of the companies who benefitted the most from the pandemic such as Amazon, PayPal and Netflix. The reason for these companies’ success is clear – as shops were shuttered and social gatherings heavily restricted due to the pandemic, online services such shopping and video streaming were in high demand. The success of the IT sector is also reflected in the performance of global share markets during the coronavirus pandemic, with tech-heavy NASDAQ being the best performing major market worldwide.

Which industry performed the worst during the pandemic?

Conversely, energy companies fared the worst during the pandemic, with the S&P 500 sector index value sitting below its early 2020 value as late as July 2021. Since then it has somewhat recovered, and was around 15 percent above January 2020 levels as of October 2021. This reflects the fact that many oil companies were among the share prices suffering the largest declines over 2020. A primary driver for this was falling demand for fuel fell in line with the reduction in tourism and commuting caused by lockdowns all over the world. However, as increasing COVID-19 vaccination rates throughout 2021 led to lockdowns being lifted and global tourism reopening, demand has again risen - reflected by the recent increase in the S&P 500 energy index.